This is it. January 20, 2017. I’m sitting in the waiting room of our dentist’s office, waiting while my son gets his twice-annual checkup. I’m more grateful than usual to have dental insurance through my employer, after hearing and reading stories this week of people who will lose their health coverage if the ACA (“Obamacare”) is repealed with no replacement. But I’m not grateful for the waiting room TV, with CNN showing live coverage of Inauguration Day. “OBAMA LEAVES OVAL OFFICE FOR LAST TIME”, and “TRUMPS DEPARTING CHURCH FOR WHITE HOUSE”, it’s making my stomach hurt.

But it’s not all grim despair, thanks to the Indivisible Guide and the growing resistance to this incoming nightmare regime. Their simple but powerful guide, available at indivisibleguide.com, lays out the basic tools and framework to organize in an effective way and fight to protect what Trump and his party of feckless grifters would rob us of.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s presidential victory, Democrats have been left without control of any branch of the federal government. But in the face of this hopelessness, grassroots Democrats and progressives have launched “Indivisible Groups” all around the country to hold Congress, Trump, and his cabinet appointments accountable. These groups are small in size, but they’re creating national change, one cabinet appointment confirmation hearing at a time.

…Indivisible Oregon started as just six women gathered in a living room on New Year’s Day. It now has over 800 followers on Facebook. On Jan. 9, they called their senators, urging them to postpone consideration of Trump’s cabinet nominees until they had finished the ethics vetting process. Ultimately, they crashed Sen. Ron Wyden’s office’s voicemail.

The story has been similar in Austin. There are a number of Indivisible-based groups popping up here, thanks to the gerrymandering that split our city into six(!) different congressional districts, but the umbrella “Indivisible Austin” group started with a couple of guys getting together to commiserate about the election. With the Guide to, umm, guide them, they found themselves the nucleus of a movement. A movement that this past week sent fifty of us to the downtown office of Sen. John Cornyn, to relay our concerns about recklessly repealing the ACA with no replacement in place.

Having something to do, actual action that might have actual effects, especially if there are people all over the country getting involved, too, has been the best remedy imaginable for the despair I felt after the election. For all the half-joking talk of moving to Canada, or even just to a blue state, I’m more sure than ever that the right response to that insane election result is to stay and fight.

We are the largest state in America governed by a Trump-aligned regime. Trump’s government will have the support of the state Capitol as our leaders act to dismantle public education, destroy our social safety net and tear apart families.

There are many of us in Texas who will likely be their first targets. Our state is home to more refugees and undocumented immigrants than almost anywhere else in the nation. It’s for this very reason that Texans must take center stage in the Trump resistance.

…The progressive movement in Texas, more than ever before, can take the bold action necessary to inspire the residents of our cities to become a part of the Trump resistance. This is a movement moment. Fighting for expanded workers’ rights, immigrants’ rights and environmental protections may sound risky in the face of Abbott, Patrick and Trump. But our families will face greater, long-term risks if we do not expose the Republican Party for the discriminatory, misogynist, anti-democratic, anti-American institution it has become.

So on a dark day, when a clownishly unqualified con-man settles into the highest seat in the land, this is the clouds’ silver lining: I, and many others I’ve met in just the past month, are waking up and starting to fight for what’s important. I’ve called my members of Congress multiple times, I’ve visited the office of one of my Senators, and I’m going to the Women’s March in Austin tomorrow – I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have done any of that if we were ringing in President Clinton’s first term today.

If you’re similarly stressed, joining in on this kind of activism is better therapy than making jokes on Twitter (though those can be good, too). If you’re not sure where to start, the Indivisible Guide is great. They have a new tool on their site where you can look for an Indivisible group near you. Or follow the same techniques by yourself; that will help, too. Or subscribe to one of the regular action newsletters, like re:act or My Civic Workout. Start now, and keep it up the rest of the year, and the next year, and the year after. Pace yourself. Don’t try to do All The Things, it’s too much. It doesn’t have to be every day, it doesn’t have to consume you. But every little bit helps, and if enough of us keep working against this administration’s agenda, maybe we’ll get through the next four (not eight) years with minimal damage to our country.